Demand for data driven marketers will drive CMO turnover, IDC predicts

IDC predicts that CMO job turnover will continue at 25 percent per year (or higher) through 2018, driven by the recruitment of those rare few who are true data driven CMOs.

“No CMO today can be a good marketer unless they become a good technologist,” says Kathleen Schaub, IDC Vice President Research, CMO Advisory Service. “To find a truly data driven marketer is very rare,” she says, adding that many CMOs “simply will not be able to make the cognitive shift from inside out to outside in.”

Adding fuel to the talent shortage, “there are many attractive new companies starting today and those CMOs who have become good at data technology and digital are successful and hotly recruited,” says Schaub. “When [those CMOs] get recruited they start a chain reaction of available CMO positions and as new CMOs come on board, IT and marketing need to be joined at the hip.”

In this free Web conference, Schaub, along with Gerry Murray, IDC Research Manager, CMO Advisory Service, discuss this and other key imperatives that CMOs must focus on for success in 2016 and beyond.

IDC’s CMO report also makes the following predictions:

• By 2020, 50 percent of companies will use cognitive computing to automate marketing and sales interactions with customers
• By 2018, predictive analytics will be a standard tool in the marketing tech toolkit, but only a third of companies will use actually use it
• In 2017, 60 percent of CMO’s will find that they are lagging recommended benchmarks for marketing technology staff investment; increasing the rift between the CMO and CIO.
• By 2020, 33 percent of CMOs will begin to outsource digital marketing activities via Marketing as a Service (MaaS)

“Marketers and their executives that embrace the challenges of transformation stand to gain the most from the effort,” said Gerry Murray, research manager with IDC’s CMO Advisory. “Today’s connected customers are demanding more authentic relationships with brands. They can instantly tell the difference between brands that make them more successful in their personal and professional lives and those that stop at delivering the goop in the bottle, the UI on the screen, or the vehicle in the garage. Success in today’s marketplace is no longer only about products and services, it’s about the whole customer.”

To access the webcast, fill out a short registration form, with no obligation or fee. Webcast viewers will also be able to download the associated PowerPoint slides.